Rotting beach restrooms are closed

For the second time in 18 months, San Diego's history of delaying maintenance to save money has caught up with it, resulting in the sudden closure of a public building due to safety concerns.

A restroom building on a popular stretch of sand in Ocean Beach has been fenced off because the roof is falling apart.

The restrooms in question are near Dog Beach at the end of Brighton Avenue, where the sand is often occupied by people playing volleyball and the water by surfers.

City officials plan to demolish the structure and build a replacement in 18 months. Meanwhile, the public will have to use portable restrooms.

David Jarrell, the city's deputy chief operating officer for public works, said the restrooms are more than four decades old and have deteriorated beyond repair.

“Pieces of the concrete were beginning to break off and fall into the inside of the facility,” he said. “All the plumbing is pretty well corroded. All the electrical stuff is.”

A similar issue came up in March 2008, when the city abandoned the lifeguard tower at Children's Pool Beach in La Jolla after engineers essentially condemned it because of structural safety concerns.

Denny Knox, executive director of the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association, a business improvement group, said the city should expedite the bathroom project.

“We would be much happier if we could be a little prouder of our facilities at the beach,” Knox said. “It's a very important part of our economic development here.”

Known for its Bohemian flair and laid-back attitude, Ocean Beach draws tens of thousands of visitors each year.

The city has fenced off the restroom building but has left open two shower heads on an outside wall for public use. Nearby, two rows of 10 portable toilets have been set up. The city is leasing them for $1,341 per month.

Right now, one inconvenience for the public is that there is no sink. The other is that there are no dressing areas. The condemned restroom building had shower heads inside and dressing areas.

Before the start of the next tourist season, Jarrell said the city will replace the portable toilets with more appealing trailer restrooms, which include multiple stalls and hand-washing sinks. He expects the trailers will be brought in over the winter.

The hazardous conditions at the restroom building came to light when a city worker called about concrete breaking from the ceiling. An engineer determined the structure had to be shut down. It was fenced off July 25.

Rebuilding the restroom will require the city to obtain a permit from the California Coastal Commission. Reconstruction is expected to cost $500,000 to $600,000. Money is available in the city's Park and Recreation Department's budget.

San Diego is slowly beginning to chip away at its $800 million backlog of maintenance and repair projects, Jarrell said. Earlier this year, it borrowed $103 million to deal with the most pressing needs, including the construction of a new lifeguard tower at the Children's Pool Beach.

Jarrell said there are plans to borrow $200 million more in the next few years to catch up with deferred maintenance.

For now, the city repairs facility problems as they come up. “We do the worst problems first,” he said. “It's all reactive. It's based on getting a service call that something isn't working and is broken.”